We descend the first set of stairs. The door groans open as though protesting resurrection. Static prickles in my headset, a soft whisper that doesn’t belong.
I stop walking.
“Interference?” Damian asks, barely above breath.
“More than that,” I murmur. “Someone else is already inside.”
His jaw tenses, a line drawn under his resolve. He presses on, and I follow, each step sinking me deeper into the earth, deeper into the memory of everything we’ve survived.
The tunnels feel narrower than the last time we were in a place like this.
Maybe because I’m not the same woman who hid behind aliases and adrenaline. I’m stripped down to the bone now, my nerves bare wires sparking with purpose. The darkness wraps around us like an old accusation.
As Damian walks ahead of me, it hits me how far Damian and I have come. The first night in the car, the cold slicing through the cracked windows. The arguments we picked apart like wounds. The reconciliations that were few in nature, quiet, fragile, sometimes furious. All of it leading here, step by step, into a tunnel that smells of wet stone and inevitability.
Damian glances back at me from time to time, checking. I answer every time by catching up to him. Halfway down the second corridor, my secure line vibrates against my rib cage.
The name flashing across the screen freezes my breath.
Sera.
I step aside, thumb trembling as I connect.
“I’m here.”
Her voice threads through the static choppily.
“Harper. Listen carefully.”
Damian pauses a few feet ahead, scanning the darkness, giving me space while staying close enough to catch me if the ground decides to vanish.
“The Ignatov Council has made a decision,” Sera continues. “They intend to erase all parties involved. Everyone who touched the operation, Bratva or not. It’s the only way they see to restore order.”
Erase.
Cold trickles down my spine.
“So we’re already dead?” My voice cracks, thin but steady.
“You can still get out,” Sera says. “Disappear. There are ways. But if you push forward… they won’t let you walk away.”
My throat tightens.
Freedom or silence. Truth or survival.
Damian’s silhouette stands ahead of me, carved from shadow and resolve. We didn’t come all this way to kneel.
“Thank you,” I whisper to Sera. “But I’m choosing the smaller chance.”
She exhales, a sound like mourning.
“Then run faster than the ones hunting you.”
The line goes dead.
I slip the device back into my pocket. Damian raises a brow in question.
“We keep going,” I say.
